I haven't had the pleasure of listening to an album by RAYE before this Friday, but now that I have, I can say I'm a fan.

When I started this album, I read the genre on Qobuz as simply "Pop" so I was surprised to find an orchestral meld of R&B and opera. Mix that to seeing features from Hans Zimmer and Al Green? What did I stunble upon?

It won't be a surprise to anyone that knows my taste in music that I'm a sucker for a concept album. This album follows RAYE as she walks through a series of short stories and scenarios that come across like watching a play. Our heroine has her confidence dashed and the weight of problems with relationships and personal self image seeming like a weight she's carrying. The common theme among each song being finding that source of hope in her life.

The album is over an hour long, so grab a drink before sitting down to hit play.

Tracks

Intro: Girl Under The Grey Cloud.

I'd usually skip the intro, but this intro sets the mood for the entire album and tells us where we're starting.

RAYE establishes where we meet our heroine, herseelf, walking home from a bar in the early morning in Paris. Clearly a long night at the bar, describing the effort she put into her appearance that she feels went unnoticed. She describes this as rejection, walking with a grey cloud over her.

I think everyone can relate to how impactful it can be to our self confidence when our efforts are unnoticed. It can be a hit to the self confidence.

RAYE takes the perspective that this would be a catalyst, part of the ingredients in the perfect recipe. Sometimes to reach our highest highs we need to experience our lows.

I Will Overcome.

The grey cloud becomes a veil, as she describes, "between hope and dispair."

Bringing in a meld of an orchestral arrangement mixed with an R&B beat sets a theme which will continue through the album.

We continue from the previous track with RAYE finding her way to her hotel. The click click of her high heels, which tie into the upcoming track "Click Clack Symphony."

She's drunk, and deep in her own head. Her mind is scanning through her memories, old pains bubbling up and "taunting" her. She sees these memories as her past self. Like looking in the mirror and hating the person looking back at you.

Regardless how we feel about ourselves, we're the product of our past - be our mistakes or our triumphs - and it can be difficult to confront your past and see the reflections in your current self. The questioning of if you've learned your lessons or if you're going to fall back into old habits.

This song establishes the hopeful theme of the story. An aspirational, yet confident statement, "I Will Overcome."

As the song ends, RAYE's clear vocals punch through the instrumental, speaking loudly and confidently when she has something to say.

Beware.. The South London Lover Boy.

Beware the predator, indiginous to all parts of the world: the human male.

The instrumental picks up in tempo with a bop that makes you just want to tap your foot. Far more swinging and with an air of attitude. RAYE starts in setting a new scene, one where a smooth talking charismatic man catches her off guard.

The song is a warning, that women should be on the look out for those smooth talkers, the ones trying to take what they want from you and give nothing back.

A breakdown snaps and a bass line to build us back into an echoing outro.

The WhatsApp Shakespeare.

Back to a punching bass in an RB& beat, RAYE steps into the next story continuing the theme of the previous track. The story of a girl seduced by the smooth words and charms of a man.

Channeling her inner Shady she dives into a rhyme scheme comparing the man to a snake attacking his prey.

And then, oh, devil did send him
Heart of blue, black venom
My mother knew when she met him
Wolf in sheep's clothes, oh, but in this case, denim
Uh, cold-blood felon

Along with obvious references to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the story being told continues like a noire mystery finding the elusive killer.

The track shifts into a second part with an instrumental change. The twist revealed that RAYE finds she wasn't the only one seduced by our "killer" - the plot thickens.

Winter Woman.

The pervious tracks have been setting up a theme of causes for RAYE being pulled down. The components of that gray cloud. In this track, a new scene takes shape. One of envy and loneliness.

RAYE sees a past love at the bar along with a new woman. The emotional soup made from the combination rejection, longing, and frustration are topped by the blow to the self confidence as her mind draws comparisons between his new woman and herself.

The frustration of unrequited feelings can turn anyone "cold" - jaded to the world as they try to cope with those feelings.

Watching them from far away
He wraps his arms, I'd die to live inside
Around her perfect, little, tiny waist
A sucker punch into my chest
Tonight, I kissed a bottle on the lips
Since desperate times require desperate pleasures

RAYE turns to her old habbits and coping the way she has in the past almost with a resignation.

Click Clack Symphony.

The orchestra enters again this time featuring a composition by the legendary Hans Zimmer.

The click clack sounds of high heels in a confident walk, yet a intro set of lyrics showing vulnerability. RAYE puts into perspective about how we all won the lottery just by being born, yet we feel incapable of doing even the most trivial things from time to time. Stuck in a cycle of simply "existing" without living.

What can help us escape that rut? Community.

Self confidence at an all time low, stuck in a loop, RAYE turns to her friends. Getting ready for a night out feels foreign, like a different self until she's walking and her stride gains confidence. Her friends are her support structure she's not used to leaning on, but when she does, she's able to feel that confidence growing. It doesn't solve everything, but it shows her that everything will be alright.

Throughout the track an instrumental underpins the message. A slow growing intensity tracking her confidence. Our orchestra plays us out with a confident crescendo.

I Know You're Hurting.

Beginning with a very minimal instrumental, we transition to a spoken intro from RAYE speaking to someone, presumably the listener.

RAYE starts by painting a picture of something that anyone in a dark place can relate to. Standing on the proverbial edge, held down by the weight of life and our emotions. This song is about empathy. About speaking to that person and telling them they know how it feels and they're not alone.

At the same time, the track could be seen as RAYE talking to herself. Seeing her past self in a dark place and relating to her. Telling her she's been there. She's climbing down that ladder and sitting with her past self, feeling that loneliness.

At the same time, the song describes the way we mask that pain, isolation, and loneliness. The idea of someone putting on that strong face and pushing through is sometimes seen as strength. RAYE acknowledges this but tells the listener that they can't always do everything alone. This echoes the previous track, that having a support structure to lean on is invaluable to the healing process.

The track leaves us with a message to not "give up on your life"

Life Boat.

Continuing from the previous track, we focus on that message of not giving up.

This track gives us a break from our heavier themes and story telling with a synth beat and repetitive messaging lyrics.

In the background of the track, we have many people repeating the message of never giving up. This gives the feeling to the listener of that togetherness. That you aren't going through things alone. Like the track's name, that sense of community can be a life boat when you're lost at sea.

I Hate The Way I Look Today.

After our hopeful break, we pivot right back into a song about self doubt and cognitive dissonance in our appearance.

RAYE introduces the track by name, which I take as a form of gallows humor about a track that is about to be talking about her negative self image.

The instrumental is an up-beat foot tapping jazz tune which leans into the humorous juxtaposition the track is taking. The self deprecating type of joke, like saying the most awful thing about yourself with a big smile on your face.

Describing how she sees herself in the mirror, RAYE acknowledges that this is her head being cruel to her, but that doesn't make the feeling any less real. Our brain can be so rotten in its way that it compares what we see in the mirror to other people. RAYE points this out in the first bridge

Oh, because some girls are so beautiful
(Effortlessly, endlessly, perfectly so)

The ironic implied message that the girl she's comparing herself to is probably doing the same thing in the mirror in the morning.

Covering the frustration with this feeling and the desire to do something about like, like plastic surgery, the track turns to a hopeful message. A message of self-love. It's not easy, but RAYE is repeating positive affirmations to herself, pushing herself to see the beauty in the mirror and not be critical or compare herself to others.

Goodbye Henry.

This song is one of those type I tend not to comment on much. It's a personal song that sounds more like a message directly to someone and I'm not that recipient.

RAYE introduces the song with a message to the listener that there's a dissonance in this track. It's going to sound happy but that it is something that is hard for her to sing.

The first half of the song are lyrics consisting of unsaid words to "Henry" from RAYE. She describes the moment of her and a man she loved parting ways for the last time. How she hurts inside, but that they were incompatible for whatever reason (the song hints at Henry's drinking, but we'll let that lie).

RAYE describes that, even now, she still has love for him. She wishes him well, hopes he's over this and moved on. The song also highlights the contradiction that this leaves inside RAYE's mind

Don't forget me or regret me

Moving on means different things to different people, and often as much as we wish we can't just forget them, but we always hope they don't regret.

Nightingale Lane.

Continuing the positively cheerful string we're on, RAYE begins this track with a message

This is a song about the greatest heartbreak I have ever known

As if the memory is spurred by "Henry" in the previous track, RAYE describes to us who she calls her "first love" and the hard feelings that linger.

The common theme is there again, as RAYE finds the hopeful perspective even in the sadness

Somebody loved me once
And someday, somebody will again
Like the way you loved me

The ever quoted phrase "better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" is one with which many people will take issue. In this song, RAYE recalls how it took years to get over this person

Took me long, hard years to get over you
It was an aching I refuse to feel again
And looking back now
We never were quite right for each other, baby
But in the absence of passion in my life
I remember how alive love once was

Having that love and passion in your life, only to have it ripped away can send you into a spiral of self doubt, depression, and loneliness that feels worse than before.

But, this song is about looking back on that time. The message that, despite how hopeless it seemed at the time, the pain did dull. Now with the memories, RAYE can look back on them, but know it got better.

Skin & Bones.

We revisit a theme we left off from "Beware.. The South London Lover Boy." - men are heartless and only want sex.

The theme of this track isn't subtle. RAYE describes her experience with the majority of men that they see her as nothing but a body and not as a person. A song about the objectification that many women can relate to.

Perhaps she's looking in the wrong places?

WHERE IS MY HUSBAND!

The first single from this project, released pretty far ahead of the rest of the album.

The frustrations of the previous track changes to an exasperated complaint as RAYE demands to know when the man of her dreams will come and find her.

RAYE wonders where he is, if he's far away, if he's with another woman. She's insecure feeling like she's running out of time and envious of people that have found that person. She's also jealous of who this unknown man might be with while she waits for him to find her.

She talks a lot about the things she wants this man to do. Maybe she needs to take a more active role in this story?

Fields.

A break from our Jazz style tunes, we have a more minimalist guitar-forward instrumental.

The track is a voicemail to her grandad, with whom she hasn't talked to in a long time. Her delivery is more muted in this song lending it contrast to the previous tracks.

RAYE says she's wanted to call for months but there's "always something more important on my to-do list," and says she's been chasing everything she lacks. In the previous track, "WHERE IS MY HUSBAND!" she's very clear about the thing she's lacking.

However, we hear a very different and introspective RAYE here.

All that I'm missing, chasing everything I lack, Grandad
Seems I dwell on what I don't have instead of what I do

RAYE is lonely. She's calling family for someone to talk to. She's feeling the effects of time with the growing anxiety that she won't find what she's looking for. She asks if he feels this way too, if he gets lonely.

Her grandad responds, saying he thinks about her every day. He pulls on his years of experience and gives her a response

You asked me if I ever get lonely
But you can feel lonely in a crowded room

Her grandad is telling her that loneliness isn't about being around people. It's not about the quantity but the quality of the connections we form. She isn't looking for someone to lay their head on her pillow that's gathering dust, she's looking for the deep connection.

It's clear RAYE looks up to and bonds with her grandad a lot. They bond over music, as her grandad was also a songwriter. They both see music as an inter-generational device for healing.

RAYE ends the track pleading that she doesn't want to cry anymore, she wants to be free from the cares that she feels are weighing her down. She wants to feel joy.

Joy.

As we take an upswing toward the end of the album, we continue in the theme of family by having a track featuring RAAYE's two sisters Amma and Absolutely.

The track has a simple message: joy will come.

I'll admit, I'm not religious, so I discovered through the Genius lyrics page that the chorus is a biblical reference

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning

— Psalm 30:5

Which has a message from multiple cultures, "this too shall pass," in which we look forward to the positive. While we may not feel it now, we can look forward to better days to come. It's a message that lines up directly with our overall album theme of finding the hope.

Happier Times Ahead.

If the message wasn't clear from the previous track, we drive the point home that what ever pit we find ourselves in. Whether it's a mundane rut of every day minutia or a devastating loss, things will be better.

The track ultimately serves as a contrast. Coming from the first half of the album of explaining the pits of darkness, loneliness, and despair that we can reach, the track is forward looking.

Something this track doesn't do is try to place us somewhere that we aren't. Meaning, we're still looking forward to those happier times. Wherever you are, and however you're feeling, the song doesn't dismiss your problems. It acknowledges that you may not be ready yet. That those happier times may not be here right now. As the message of the album, we're looking forward. Giving that hope to carry on.

Fin.

As we close out the album, RAYE speaks to the listener to summarize the messages of the album.

She hopes you've taken away from this album what you needed. Whether it be just songs to sing along, hard words you needed to hear, or just a feeling that you're not alone.

Leaving us with a final message, she says the only guarantee in life is that we're all going to die in the end, that what makes life worth living is the seasons in between; the ups and downs, the rain and shine. That hope is always there and we just need to be there for it.

Signing out, RAYE reads the credits.

Conclusions

Like I said, this is my first time listening to RAYE's music. I do have to go back and listen to her previous album, My 21st Century Blues now.

I really enjoyed the way RAYE structured this album. She took a lot of care for the flow, not just within the tracks themselves, but how they fit into an overall story and theme of the album. In my review of Ratboy's album Signin' To An Empty Chair I noticed that they also put effort into their album's sequencing, flow, and messaging. This idea of album sequencing is something that is growing more rare these days as streaming services have dominated the music industry and the vast majority of listeners discover new music by shuffled recommendations.

I appreciate artists like RAYE that will make an album with tracks that flow between each other, and carry an overarching story to take the listener on a journey. RAYE does an excellent job of making sure the songs stand on their own, tell a story within themselves, while also keeping the album cohesive.

The instrumentals of the project effortlessly flow between synth beats, orchestral pieces, jazz tunes, and emotional minimal melodies. It's such a variety that both means there's something here for everyone, but also follows the mood throughout the album. Like a story that has ups and downs, this album too has instrumentals that make the heart beat, or lull you into a soft comfort.

I did not expect the level of song writing and complexity from this album when I clicked play on it. Part of the joy I get from listening to new music is surprises such as these. I'm looking forward to whatever RAYE does next.